Reflections on Blaxploitation: Actors and Directors Speak

249 Pages·2009·2.1 MB·English

by  David Walker

Reflections on
Blaxploitation
AAccttoorrss aanndd DDiirreeccttoorrss SSppeeaakk
D W
AVID ALKER
A J. R
NDREW AUSCH
C W
HRIS ATSON
THE SCARECROW PRESS, INC.
Lanham, Maryland •Toronto•Plymouth, UK
2009
SCARECROW PRESS, INC.
Published in the United States of America
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The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
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Copyright © 2009 by David Walker, Andrew J. Rausch, Chris Watson
All images from the authors’ collections
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Reflections on blaxploitation : actors and directors speak / [interviewers] David
Walker, Andrew J. Rausch, Chris Watson.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8108-6706-2 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8108-6706-0 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8108-6732-1 (ebook)
ISBN-10: 0-8108-6732-X (ebook)
1. Blaxploitation films–United States–History and criticism. 2. African Americans
in motion pictures. 3. African American actors–Interviews. 4. African American
motion picture producers and directors–Interviews. I. Walker, David. II. Rausch,
Andrew J. III. Watson, Christopher.
PN1995.9.N4R46 2009
791.43'652996073–dc22 2008045841
(cid:2)™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
To the many actors and filmmakers
from the blaxploitation era
who are no longer with us.
If you were to talk about a film that was made by
Charles Bronson—Death Wish—and we called it
“whitesploitation,” you’d laugh. Why then don’t we
laugh when we take a film that’s made by Jim Brown
or Fred Williamson and we call that blaxploitation?
—Oscar Williams
Exploitation? Movies are exploitation. They are. But
for some reason, they put the words black and ex-
ploitation together and brought those words to the
film—to ourfilm. They called the other action films
with Humphrey Bogart and these other guys, they
called those “B” movies. And they called us blax-
ploitation. It just seemed to have a bad connotation.
—Gloria Hendry
I never understood what it meant. Who was being
exploited? Certainly not me. My checks cleared. And
the people who worked for me, their checks cleared.
So who the hell was being exploited? The people
went to the show because they enjoyed what they
were seeing.
—Fred Williamson
Contents
Introduction vii
David Walker
1 Ralph Bakshi 1
2 Jim Brown 10
3 Michael Campus 16
4 Steve Carver 24
5 Matt Cimber 32
6 Greydon Clark 39
7 Larry Cohen 47
8 Don Pedro Colley 59
9 Jamaa Fanaka 71
10 Antonio Fargas 79
11 Sid Haig 85
12 Gloria Hendry 93
13 Jack Hill 101
14 Jim Kelly 109
15 William Marshall 119
16 Rudy Ray Moore 125
17 Ron O’Neal 135
18 Larry Spangler 149
19 Glynn Turman 157
20 Melvin Van Peebles 168
v
vi CONTENTS
21 Oscar Williams 173
22 Fred Williamson 181
Appendix: Blaxploitation from A to Z 189
Index 229
About the Authors 237
Introduction
David Walker
Big bad soul brothers and super sexy sisters, their afros picked to spherical
perfection and their guns blazing, lit up the silver screen in a dynamic cin-
ematic explosion that forever changed Hollywood. The time was 1970,
and much of America—especially black America—was still dealing with
the tumultuous times of the 1960s. Out of this era came a new breed of
film that would completely change the way black people were presented in
movies. In time, these films would be called “blaxploitation.”
Audiences were mesmerized by these new films. Never before had
black men and women appeared on screen in quite the same way. Even
during the height of the “race films” and “black cast films” of the 1930s
and 1940s, there had never been anything quite like blaxploitation. In The
Emperor Jones (1933), Paul Robeson’s character threatened a white man
and was made to pay for this unthinkable sin. Forty years later, in The
Spook Who Sat by the Door(1973), black militants led a revolution to over-
throw the government in a violent fantasy that reflected much of the lin-
gering rage from past decades. Although the anger and frustration of black
America had long been suppressed or ignored in films, filmmakers of the
1970s drew from those feelings to create a new kind of entertainment.
Film historians and fans alike have long debated exactly which film
launched the blaxploitation cycle. Some say it was Melvin Van Peebles’s
seminal independent film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971), while
others say it was director Gordon Parks’s Shaft (1971), produced by
MGM. The tremendous financial success of both films helped open the
floodgates for the more than 200 films that are now considered blax-
vii
viii INTRODUCTION
ploitation, but the origins of the genre can be directly found in films like
In the Heat of the Night(1967) and Cotton Comes to Harlem(1970), which
is technically the closest to being the first blaxploitation film. As for the
term itself, blaxploitation wasn’t coined until 1972, most likely a direct re-
sult of the film Superfly(1972).
As difficult as it is to decide which film to credit with giving birth to
blaxploitation, it is equally as difficult to figure out what blaxploitation re-
ally is, how long it lasted, and what films should bear that label. Is the term
positive or negative? Can “blaxploitation” be used to describe films made
before the term was coined, or after production ceased on most of the films?
Since most of the films thought of as blaxploitation are action thrillers, does
that mean that comedies or dramas are exempt from the label?
You could ask these and other questions of a dozen different people,
and you’re likely to hear a different answer every time. Some say that
movies like Cooley High(1975) or Lady Sings the Blues(1972) are not blax-
ploitation, because they are “too good,” or because they aren’t action films.
Some say that blaxploitation is a terrible word and horribly offensive, while
others say it is a perfect way to describe films of that era. Some say that
blaxploitation ended in the 1970s; others claim it is still alive.
The reality is that blaxploitation is neither positive nor negative; it
simply is what it is. And what it is, first and foremost, is a genre of film
that includes action, comedy, drama, romance, and even documentary—
made and marketed to a predominantly black audience—as well as the era
in which these films were made. The traditional blaxploitation film—if
there really is such a thing—may have ended in the 1970s, but many
movies similar to blaxploitation have come along in the decades that fol-
lowed.
In understanding the blaxploitation era, it is important to understand
the era that preceded it. The 1960s were a turbulent time in American his-
tory. The war being fought in Vietnam divided much of the country, as did
the struggle for civil rights. Segregation was still the law of the land in the
South, and the battle to change that and create a greater equality for all
Americans was a struggle that did not come without sacrifice. This is es-
pecially true for black America, which saw the murder of leaders like
Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X.
Going into the 1970s, black America was in need of an escape from
the brutal reality of the past decade. The films that came along during the
early part of the 1970s provided just such an escape, creating a fantasy
INTRODUCTION ix
world on the big screen where black men and women were the heroes. But
these films proved to be more than a cinematic catharsis; they also created
a new mythology.
In a society inundated with pop culture icons that were white, the
black heroes of the blaxploitation films provided a needed respite from
characters like James Bond and cinematic icons like John Wayne. For ar-
guably the first time since the invention of motion pictures, there were fi-
nally larger-than-life black heroes who saved the day, often by standing up
to the dominant oppressor (a.k.a. whitey). And no matter how much neg-
ativity can be said about the blaxploitation era, the fact that it provided a
generation with iconic heroes remains a significant truth.
The other truth about blaxploitation is that it helped save Hollywood.
For the studios, which had been suffering financially for several years after
a string of box office disappointments, blaxploitation represented a form
of salvation. These were the days before suburban multiplex theaters. Most
movie theaters were still located in the heart of the city. But after the mas-
sive migration of whites to the suburbs (known as “the great white flight”),
those theaters became harder and harder to fill, because there were so few
white people living in the inner city. Films like Shaft and Foxy Brown
(1974) drew in black audiences and box office revenues that helped strug-
gling studios stay afloat.
Blaxploitation films changed how black men and women were por-
trayed in films. Gone were the old negative stereotypes that had dominated
films for over 70 years. Replacing them were new archetypes, including
drug dealers, pimps, and hardened criminals. The new images were ini-
tially a welcome change for audiences, and the studios were more than
happy to be making money, but the constant barrage of morally ambigu-
ous anti-heroes soon led to a backlash. The films soon became a target of
political watchdogs looking to earn a reputation. Critics of blaxploitation
included organizations such as the NAACP and the Urban League. In fact,
it is widely believed that the term blaxploitation was coined by a leader of
the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP.
By the mid-1970s, the popularity of blaxploitation was fading. As a
genre, the films were seldom allowed to deviate from a standard model,
which grew very old very quickly. Less money was being spent on bad rip-
offs of movies that were already low budget, and the result was unwatchable
trash like The Guy from Harlem(1977), which represent the bottom of the
blaxploitation barrel. The political backlash that surrounded blaxploitation,